Stroh v. Alaska State Housing Authority
This text of 459 P.2d 480 (Stroh v. Alaska State Housing Authority) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alaska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
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OPINION
Appellant leased the Aurora Hotel property in Anchorage from Catherine Grasser [482]*482for a five-year term in 1952 or 1953. The lease was renewed for subsequent five-year terms in 1957 and 1962 — the expiration, date of the last term being December. 31, 1967.
In 1965 appellee took the Aurora Hotel property under its power of eminent domain in connection with an urban renewal project. The value of the property was fixed at $92,500.00, and appellant’s leasehold interest in the property, at $3,750.00. Compensation was not allowed for appellant’s claimed property right in the nature of a tenant’s right of renewal. Appellant claims this was error.
Appellant testified as follows:
Q. Did you ever have any discussions with Mr. Grasser about future occupancy after this lease expired ?1
A. He told me as long as he had that building I could have that building, lease or no lease. That nobody he — he wouldn’t lease that to anybody else if they paid him five hundred dollars a month more because I took such good care of the property for him and he never had to worry; his check was there every month and — and the building was taken care of.
Appellant contends that this testimony showed not only a possibility but a probability of renewal of the lease after expiration of the five-year term in December 1967, and that this was a property right which should have been compensated for when the property was taken under the power of eminent domain.
There is some authority for the proposition advanced by appellant — that a tenant’s reasonable expectation of renewal of a lease should be considered as an element of value in condemnation proceedings.2 But the weight of authority, with which we are in accord, holds to the contrary.3 A tenant’s right of renewal of a lease refers to a legal right, and this exists only when the lease expressly grants to the tenant the option to renew the lease at the end of its term. A mere expectation, or even probability, that the lease will be renewed based upon past practice and present good relations between landlord and tenant, is not a legal right of renewal. It is nothing more than a speculation on chance. Intentions which are subject to change at the will of a landlord do not constitute an interest in land so as to confer upon the tenants something .to be valued and compensated for in a condemnation action. As was stated by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Emery v. Boston Terminal Co.,4 an opposite view “would allow the tenants to diminish the share of the landowners on the strength of the latter having entertained an intention which they were free to change if they chose.” The court below correctly held that appellant did not possess, in the property condemned by appellee, a property interest known as a tenant’s right of renewal for which she was entitled to compensation.
When the lease agreement was first made in 1952 or 1953, appellant paid her landlord $18,000.00 for the furnishings in the hotel. Appellant claims that she re[483]*483moved the furnishings- in the face of demolition of the hotel building, and since the furnishings were not suitable for use elsewhere, she was required to sell them at public auction for a salvage price less than their actual value. Appellant claims that the lower court erred in denying her compensation for the depreciation in value of such furnishings.
Article I, section 18 of the Alaska Constitution provides:
Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation.
Pointing to a statute which deals with the taking of property under the power of eminent domain,5 and to a statute of general application defining “property” as including real and personal property,6 appellant contends that the words “private .property”, as used in the constitution, include personal property such as the furnishings in the hotel. Appellant contends further that the prohibition in the constitution against damaging private property without just compensation refers not only to physical damage but also to depreciation in value of property resulting from the exercise of the power of eminent domain.7
This is not an appropriate occasion to decide the question raised by appellant, for even if we were to subscribe to her argument we could not give her the relief she seeks. The reason is that there is nothing in the record to support appellant’s assertion that the hotel furnishings were sold at a loss at public auction. There is no evidence showing precisely what such property consisted of, what its value was, apart from evidence as to what was paid for it in 1952 or 1953, and where, when and for how much money the property was sold. In view of this lack of evidence in the record, we shall not pass upon the legal question raised by appellant. We cannot find that the lower court erred in declining to allow appellant compensation for the depreciation in value of the hotel furnishings.
The judgment is affirmed.
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459 P.2d 480, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stroh-v-alaska-state-housing-authority-alaska-1969.